Watercolor-Painting Flowers

Painting Flowers in Watercolor

How to Paint Glorious Watercolor Flowers

Demonstration of Wild Roses in Watercolor

I drew an outline for the main flowers. I did not worry too much about the leaves.

Knowing full well these would be placed and painted direct with a brush.

I blocked in flower shapes with a weak wash of Rose Madder.

Painted leaves with a weak wash of Lemon Yellow.

Then, I made all the Greens with PG7, Antwerp Blue, PB27 and Lemon Yellow PY53 by varying the ratios between pigments and water.

Close-up View

Another close-up

In both cases you can see additional work.

Fnished Painting

Do’s and Dont’s of Painting Flowers in Watercolor

WHY……..In painting Flowers in Watercolor, the painted area will immediately scream at you if it’s wrong.

The thing to do is then eliminate the screams.

It’s like a child, if it screams something is wrong, so you just eliminate it. No, not the child, just the scream. I have not had any students eliminate the wrong one yet…. but you never know.

The petal is going to be a series of “Lost and Found Edges” (soft and hard).

Paint any shape and then soften with a damp brush on one edge. It’s going to be a piece of cake if you keep in mind the brush must be dryer than the painted area.Now wasn’t that easy……….a very wet brush and it will not be easy but a big mess.

Shown is a soft edge

Note – you will never get a hard edge on wet paper. Likewise you will never get a soft edge on dry
paper.

Do pay very close attention to the hard and soft image shown above, they are both painted with the same color and strength but the difference in value is caused by the paper being wet and diluting the pigment, in the illustration showing the soft edge.

So always keep that in mind, wet paper produces different results compared to dry paper. More information on how to paint Flowers in Watercolor.

Now let’s think about petals that have curled edges, that’s right leaves also are curled.
Curled edges give you an opportunity to add color and brilliance to your Flowers in Watercolor .

You can achieve the illusion of curled edges by painting the surfaces facing the light a little cooler when you learn how to paint Flowers in Watercolor.

Note – you will never get a hard edge on wet paper. Likewise you will never get a soft edge on dry
paper.
Do pay very close attention to the hard and soft image shown above, they are both painted with the same color and strength but the difference in value is caused by the paper being wet and diluting the pigment, in the illustration showing the soft edge.
So always keep that in mind, wet paper produces different results compared to dry paper. More information on how to paint Flowers in Watercolor.
Now let’s think about petals that have curled edges, that’s right leaves also are curled.
Curled edges give you an opportunity to add color and brilliance to your Flowers in Watercolor .
You can achieve the illusion of curled edges by painting the surfaces facing the light a little cooler when you learn how to paint Flowers in Watercolor.

The cool and darker shadows mold and describe the form of the petal.

The area facing the sky might also be cooler reflecting such.
It is best to paint one petal at a time, not painting adjacent petals. If you paint two petals side by side they will bleed into each other. At this point you don’t have to finish the petal to complete completion.
You may also indicate surface form by “line” in say an IRIS FLOWER WATERCOLOR PAINTING.
This petal appears to curve largely because of the vein lines on it’s surface. A change in color temperature further enforces the illusion

Several things you must keep in mind, when learning how to paint Flowers in Watercolor, curls and petals that have multiruffled blooms. Not only is the whole flower subject to sun and shadow, but each petal moves from sun to shade and then into shadow many times within one petal.
“Jim, all these rules are getting to me”……OK, Think this way then, Petal in sun, Petal twists and turns, Shadow and Light occur. Paint it that way. And you’re done.